On the Soul and the Resurrection continues, as St. Gregory of Nyssa talks with his dying(!) sister about stuff that doubters say about the Resurrection, continuing to ask her as his old teacher to assuage his fears about her passing.

The freaky thing is that St. Greg was apparently really bothered by the whole question of how it works to be resurrected, to the point of imparting all these complicated Greek worries that sound like Dr. McCoy and the transporter. I guess St. Macrina was used to her little brother freaking out, though. (Indeed, his life story lends one to suppose that he did fret and jump to weird conclusions about something weird all the time. This isn’t to say that he couldn’t be reasonable; he was a great theologian and teacher. But it took him a long hard road to get there, and in this case he may have reverted a bit, under stress.) It’s obvious that he has no hesitation about asking her this stuff; he’s not afraid at all that he might make her lose faith. There’s something very family about that.

This is a picture of Our Lady of the O, aka Our Lady of Expectation or Our Lady of Hope. This is Mary counting down the last week of Advent, waiting for her baby to come. (You can see the position of the baby marked by the Sun of Justice over her womb.) She is shown singing or pondering the O antiphons of that week from her book, accompanied by an angel band; and she is wearing a belt high over her tummy, which was how pregnant women dressed in many countries around the world.

Here’s another picture of the Madonna del Parto (Our Lady in pregnancy) which shows another common style of olden days pregnancy wear — laced clothing that’s been loosened. It may be a picture of Mary walking around right before birth, as it was common to have companions to walk you around and the angels might be them. The expression seems to say, “C’mon, already!”

All right, so St. John Chrysostom, patriarch of Constantinople who alternated between superstardom and exile, was not American and never wrote about Thanksgiving. And the Letter to the Colossians is not about Gobble Day, either.

But there’s a lot of applicable stuff about giving thanks in Chrys’ homily series on Colossians, so enjoy!

Yes, I’m still sinus’d up. I’m mostly better, but I just can’t shake this thing. I did manage to get through choir on Wednesday night, but my voice felt pretty shredded afterwards. I’ve been a little hoarse for most of a week and a half, although I’ve never actually lost my voice per se. There’ve been several days this week when my hoarseness did let up (which is why I went to choir), but the sinus headaches kick in when the voice starts feeling better. I love you guys and I love podcasting, but I’m not going to try to read with a hoarse voice or a headache right under my eyes!

If you’re on Audible, they’re having their half-price sale. You can get huge amounts of Bujold, Wodehouse, etc. One real gem is a collection of C.S. Lewis’ radio talks on The Four Loves. Obviously, this primary version is shorter and more generalized than the book. However, it’s also recordings of C.S. Lewis. On the radio. Does it get more awesome!? (It’s also proof that the BBC doesn’t always lose stuff and reuse the tapes… heh heh.)

If you want to listen to stuff free, you know there are tons of podcasts and free audiobooks and audio dramas out there. Sffaudio and Sonitus Sanctus are very good sources for finding what’s being produced, and of course Librivox is always a storehouse of good listening. Forgotten Classics is just starting a new one, too, so you can hop on that train.

With Anglican Use Catholics in the news as the new Anglican Ordinariate gets rolling, you might want to listen to the erudite and lively scriptural talks/classes given by the pastor of the Anglican Use parish of Our Lady of the Atonement. I know I’ve recommended these talks before, but there’s always new ones. (The Acts of the Apostles is ongoing at present.) It’s good stuff: educational, spiritual, and not at all dry. (Scroll down past the sermons to see all the selections — though the sermons are good too, if you’re in that kind of mood.)